1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for providing a web portal designer with a possibility to adopt an external control to the look and feel of the web portal.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
The design and implementation of web portals involves analyzing and supplying content relevant to users of the portal, as well as designing and implementing the user-interface aspects, including the look-and-feel of the portal components. As for the look-and-feel aspects, a portal should preferably present a standardized look and feel, thus offering the user a feeling of consistency. Consistency may relate to ways of activating functionalities and consuming information or services from the portal, including locating and opening documents, accessing information, operating applications and services or the like. However, consistency also relates to the looks of elements in the system, including fonts, borders, color schemes, and additional factors. When portal elements employ uniform, matching or related looks, the portal looks more professional, harmonic and easy to use, rather than a mere collection of items. Some portals may offer users a multiplicity of available look-and-feel options, generally referred to as themes. Each theme preferably provides a uniform and harmonic look-and-feel, although the look-and feel may differ from look-and-feel associated with other themes. One or more themes may be made available to users based on their choices, privileges, role or any other factor.
As long as a portal component uses controls which were specifically developed for the portal, including controls such as buttons, labels, menus, images, check boxes, input fields, tables, collection of controls or others the uniform look-and-feel is usually inherent and requires no additional effort by the portal designer. However, uniformity is not guaranteed when portal components contains external controls i.e., controls originating from a different source, and not supplied with the portal development kit. Such controls can be third-party controls which are generally intended to be specifically adapted to users' needs, or the like. When using an external control, the control's look-and-feel which is usually different from the look-and-feel of the other portal's components, should be adapted to each theme offered by the portal, to provide a user with harmonic experience. However, the routine work of portal users should not be interrupted while a designer is adapting a control to the portal. Users should not be aware of changes in the control's looks, caused by the designer's work, and should be able to see only those versions of the control which the designer wishes to share.
There is therefore a need for a system and method that will provide a user interface designer, or a style designer with a way to adapt an external control to a look-and-feel of a portal theme. The system and method should enable the adaptation without affecting, disturbing, or confusing other users using the control until the user interface designer is ready to deploy the control's style and expose it to other users.